


Spines

by Kryptodrakon



Series: Keith Genuary 2019 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Plant Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 19:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17269976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptodrakon/pseuds/Kryptodrakon
Summary: In which Keith is sort of like a cactus.





	Spines

It’s not unusual for Colleen’s botany lab to play host to a paladin of Voltron here and there. 

 

Pidge is there the most, because she’s grounded and Colleen likes to keep an eye on her. There’s a lot of half hearted grumbling but Beezer is around a lot too, and those days always markedly improve the green paladin’s mood. 

 

Hunk likes to check on the food she’s growing, and asks her advice about different strains of yeast for cooking and baking. 

 

Lance checks obsessively on her juniberry project, watching the little flower for hours with a look of stupid joy on his face. After the atlas takes off he starts coming in with Allura, the two of them holding hands and talking quietly while they admire the little bud that’s emerged from the single stem. 

 

Even Shiro drops by now and then, to confide in her and to enjoy the growing things and the smell of dirt when metal walls and the quiet of empty space get to be too much sometimes. 

 

There’s one notable exception. She assumes Keith just has no interest in botany, and she’s heard enough rumors about how much time he spends training. He’s also the leader of Voltron, something of a liaison to the Blade of Marmora, well respected among Matt’s rebels, and spends more time bogged down in meetings than Sam does. He’s busy. 

 

So the first time she makes a late night trip to her lab to snip a few mint leaves for Sam’s upset stomach, she’s surprised to find him cloistered in the little corner she reserves for plants from the desert biomes on Earth. 

 

“Keith?”

 

He jumps, and then immediately looks guilty. “I was just… sorry I didn’t mean to invade your lab.”

 

Colleen waves him off. “Nonsense. Everyone’s welcome to visit with the plants. But shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Amazing how easily she slips into concerned mother mode; dealing with Pidge has brought it closer to the surface the last few months. 

 

Keith lets his shaggy hair fall into his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep. It happens sometimes.”

 

“To Sam too. You’ve all been through a lot.” She should get back with the mint leaves, but Sam will understand the delay. “Shiro said you spent some time in the desert.” She gestures to the plants. 

 

He nods, eyeing the little prickly pear poking out of the dirt. “My dad and I lived out there before he died. And then I… went back, after the Garrison kicked me out.” He shifts in his chair, works his jaw for a second. “He used to take me foraging, said mixing local flavors into our food made it taste more like home. I used to spend the afternoons after school rubbing cholla buds against an old screen to break the glochids off.” 

 

“He sounds like a smart man,” she says with a smile. 

 

The shy little uptick of his lips feels like a victory. “He was. I used to think it was boring, but knowing how to prepare all this stuff saved me more than once. And once you get past the spines a lot of it is pretty good.” 

 

They talk for a few more minutes, until Keith notices the mint leaves wilting in her hands and quietly excuses himself, bidding her a goodnight with a soft smile. 

 

It’s not that Colleen didn’t believe Shiro when he told her Keith had lived two years in the quantum abyss while the rest of them had experienced a few months at most, and she’s never really known Keith beyond what Shiro and Sam have told her, but it makes it easier to believe that this Keith, quietly sure of himself, willing to open up to a near-stranger like Colleen, to share a little bit of himself without suspicion, is the same ‘discipline case’ that had stolen Shiro’s car and captured his attention so long ago. 

 

She’s forty minutes later returning to her quarters with the mint leaves, but Sam just takes his tea with a smile and assures her he doesn’t mind, and if he notices the sandy grit under her nails he doesn’t mention it.

 

A couple days later someone leaves a post-it note stuck to her door. The little sketch of a cholla stem in a pot with  _ Thank you! - K  _ scrolled underneath earns a place among the framed pictures of her family on the wall in her office, and when Lance mentions Keith’s new prickly desk plant the next time he visits, how it fits his personality to a T, she has to swallow the urge to respond with something about how it’s worth it to work past the spines. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you forget you decided to commit to Genuary. I'm so sorry for the bad cactus metaphor okay? Hopefully the whole month won't be this awful. XD


End file.
